L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Media
of Exchange or Trade

[This
text was originally published in 1907 by the Bureau of American Ethnology
as part of its Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico.
It was later reproduced, in 1913, by the Geographic Board of Canada.
The work done by the American Bureau was monumental, well informed and
incorporated the most advanced scholarship available at the time. In
many respects, the information is still useful today, although prudence
should be exercised and the reader should consult some of the contemporary
texts on the history and the anthropology of the North America Indians
suggested in the bibliographic introduction to this section. The articles
were not completely devoid of the paternalism and the prejudices prevalent
at the time. While some of the terminology used would not pass the test
of our "politically correct" era, most terms have been left unchanged
by the editor. If a change in the original text has been effected it
will be found between brackets [.] The original work contained long
bibliographies that have not been reproduced for this web edition. For
the full citation, see the end of the text.]

Before
the arrival of Europeans intertribal trade had resulted almost everywhere
in America in the adoption of certain standards of value of which the
most important were shell beads and skins. The shell currency of the
Atlantic coast consisted of small white and black or purplish beads
out from the valves of quahaug and other shells and familiarly known
as wampum. These were very convenient, as they could be strung together
in quantities and carried any distance for purposes of trade, in this
respect having a decided advantage over skins. In exchange two white
beads were equivalent to one black one. During the early colonial period
wampum was almost the only currency among white people as well; but
inferior, poorly finished kinds, made not only out of shell, but of
atone, bone, glass, horn, and even wood, were soon introduced, and in
spite of all attempted regulation the value of wampum dropped continually
until in 1661 it was declared to be legal tender no longer in Massachusetts,
and a year or two later the same fate overtook it in the other New England
colonies. In New York it appears to have held on longer, its latest
recorded use as currency being in 1693. Holm says, speaking of the Delawares
of New Jersey: "In trade they measure those strings [of wampum] by their
length," each fathom of them being worth 5 Dutch guilders, reckoning
4 beads for every stiver. "The brown beads are more valued than the
others and fetch a higher price; a white bead is of the value of a piece
of copper money, but a brown one is worth a piece of silver." Hohm quotes
another authority, however, to the effect that a white bead was worth
one stiver and a black bead two. The latter says also that "their manner
of measuring the strings is by the length of their thumbs; from the
end of the nail to the first joint makes 6 beads."

On
the Pacific coast between S. E. Alaska and N. California shell
currency of another kind was employed. This was made from the Dentalium
pretiosum (money tooth-shell), a slender univalve found on the
W. coasts of Vancouver and Queen Charlotte ids. In the Chinook jargon
it was called hiaqua. The principal place where it was obtained
is said to have been the territory of a Nootka tribe, the Ehatisaht,
in Esperanza inlet, W. coast of Vancouver id., but it was collected
as far N. as Quatsino inlet. The method of procuring it is
described in one of the earliest accounts of this region, the Narrative
of John Jewitt. According to Boas, a block of cedar was split up at
one end so that it formed a kind of brush which opened when pushed down
into the water and closed when pulled up, thus entangling the shells.
These shells were valued in proportion to their individual lengths.
In W. Washington the standard of value was 40 to the fathom, and the
value fell off rapidly above that number, while very long single shells
were worth more than a dollar. A fathom of 40 was formerly equivalent
to a slave, according. to Gibbs, and in his time would bring $5. In
California and on the plateaus farther N. the shells had incised designs.
Among the Hupa of California they are decorated by being wrapped spirally
with fish skin or snake skin, and in addition usually bear a tuft of
red feathers, probably from the woodpecker's crest. The following further
description of these is given by Goddard:

"The
individual shells are measured and their value determined by the creases
on the left hand. The longest known shells were about 2½ in.
long. One of them would reach from the crease of the last joint of the
little finger to the crease on the palm opposite the knuckle joint of
the same finger. The value of such a piece in early days was about $5.
Shells of this length were called diñket. The next smaller
shells were called kiketûkûtxoi, and measured about
2 3/8 in. They were worth about $1.50 each. A shell about 1 1/8 in.
long was called tcwolahit. Their value was from 25 to 50 cents.
Shells smaller than these were not rated as money and had no denomination.
The length of the shells smaller than the first mentioned was determined
by applying them to the creases of the middle and other fingers of the
left hand.

"This
money was strung on strings which reached from the thumb nail to the
point of the shoulder. Eleven of the largest size filled such a string
and was therefore called moanala. Twelve shells of the next
smaller size composed a string and were called moanamax. Thirteen
shells are called moanatak, and 14 of the smallest shells,
called moanadink, was the largest number placed on a string.
These strings are approximately 25 in. long. This, as it appears, was
the least common multiple of the individual standard lengths.

"Since
all hands and arms are not of the same length, it was necessary for
the man, when he reached his maturity, to establish the values of the
creases on his hand by comparison with money of known length as measured
by someone else. He also had a set of lines tattooed on the inside of
the left forearm. These lines indicated the length of 5 shells of the
several standards. The measures were sub-divided, there being lines
of moanala long and moanala short, and so on. This
was the principal method of estimating the money. The first 5 on the
string were measured by holding the tip of the first shell at the thumb
nail and drawing the string along the arm and noting the tattooed mark
reached by the butt of the fifth shell. In like manner the last and
intermediate sets of 5 were measured." This shell money was carried
in special elk-horn boxes.

Among
the coast tribes N. of Vancouver id., dentalia were not so much in vogue,
but were used for ornamental purposes and in trade with the interior
Indians. The standard of value among the Kutchakutchin and neighbouring
tribes consisted of lines of beads 7 ft. long joined together at the
distance of a foot, and called naki eik ('bead clothing').
The whole naki eik , according to Jones, "is equal to 24 made
beaver, and one of the lines is one or more beaver skins, according
to the value of the beads."

A
more usual standard of value among interior people, however, was the
pelt, especially the skin of the beaver. Even on the Atlantic coast
it was used from the very earliest times side by side with wampum, and
in 1613 the statement is made that it was the basis of all trade between
the French of Canada and the Indians. In 1670 (Margry, Déc
., I, 164, 1878) it is learned that a beaver skin was worth a fathom
of tobacco, a fourth of a pound of powder, 6 knives, or a portion of
little blue beads. According to Hunter it was also the standard of value
among the Osage, Hansa, Oto, Omaha , and their neighbours. He adds that
2 good otter skins, from 10 to 12 raccoon, or 4 or 5 wildcat (lynx?)
skins were valued as one beaver skin. Here this standard passed out
very rapidly with the coming of white men; but in the great fur regions
of Canada it remained the basis of value first between French and Indians,
and afterward between English and Indians. Up to the present time everything
is valued in "skins," meaning beaver skins, but the term has come to
have a fixed value of 50 cents in Canadian money.

In
former days, before the arrival of the Russians, the unit of value among
the [Inuit] of the lower Yukon was a full grown land-otter skin, to
which was equivalent the skin of the large hair seal. This has now given
place to the beaver; and all other skins, furs, and articles of trade
are sold as "a skin" and multiples and fractions of a "skin" "in addition
to this," says Nelson, "certain small, untanned skins, used for making
fur coats or blouses, are tied in lots sufficient to make a coat, and
are sold in this way. It requires 4 skins of reindeer fawns, or 40 skins
of Parry's marmot or of the muskrat for a coat, and these sets are known
by terms designating these bunches." The pelt of a wolf or wolverene
[sic] is worth several "skins" in trade, while a number of pelts of
muskrats or Parry's marmot are required to make the value of "a skin."

Among
the northern tribes in the N. Pacific coast area, where dentalia were
not so much valued, elk and moose skins seem formerly to have constituted
one of the standards of value, although the skins of other animals were
no doubt used to some extent as well. In later times all these were
replaced by blankets introduced by the Hudson's Bay Company, which were
distinguished by points or marks on the edge, woven into their texture,
the best being 4-point, the smallest and poorest 1-point. The acknowledged
unit of value, at least among the Haida, was a single 2½ point
blanket, worth in 1880 a little more than $1.50, but on the coast farther
S. it is now rated at about 50 cents. Everything was referred to this
unit, according to Dawson, even a large 4-point blanket being said to
be worth so many "blanket,."

Another
standard universal in this region was slaves, and perhaps the remarkable
copper plates should also be mentioned, though strictly speaking they
were legal tender of varying value which had to be fixed by means of
some other standard, such as blankets or slaves. Pieces of cedar bark
prepared for roofing sometimes appear as units of value also.

By
the interior Salish of British Columbia Indian hemp bark was put up
in bundles about 2 ft. long and 2 in. in diameter, and tied at both
ends, and 6 of these bundles constituted a "package," while dried salmon
was generally sold by the "stick," each stick numbering 100 fish (Teit).

Although
including the more prominent standards, the foregoing list by no means
exhausts their number, for where articles of various kinds were continually
bartered, numerous standards of a more or less evanescent nature arose.

Source:
James WHITE, ed., Handbook of Indians of Canada, Published
as an Appendix to the Tenth Report of the Geographic Board of Canada,
Ottawa, 1913, 632p., pp. 156-158.